This week: Green Bath News at the Meadows meeting, Bonn talks latest, a giant fusion reactor, a HUGE African solar energy plant for Europe, hydrogen cars and much, much (well, a little bit) more...
REBEL TORIES ATTEND MEADOWS MEETING
The five councillors (including two Conservatives) who put their names to a letter complaining that they were "pressurised, encouraged or coerced” into voting yes to for the Bathampton park & ride scheme were at the Save the Meadows meeting last night, where campaign leaders made a powerful case against the plan. Green Bath News was also at the meeting and leaned that, apart from spoiling green belt landscape without proper consultation, while doing nothing to reduce traffic, it’s a really good idea. A detailed account of the meeting, which vowed to fight the proposals all the way, will up on the campaign’s website soon. Up the meadows!
Campaign website:
http://savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk
Chronicle report:
http://tinyurl.com/protest-meeting
“Coercion” story:
http://tinyurl.com/vote-row
TWO TUNNELS OPEN DAY
The Two Tunnels people are opening Combe Down Tunnel to guided walks on the Saturday 27 June between 10am and 5pm. Not surprisingly, places are going fast. Visit the website for details.
http://www.twotunnels.org.uk
GREEN ADVISE FOR BUSINESSES
Business Link South West, a self-help website for small and medium sized businesses, has an excellent page devoted to helping organisations green themselves up. It offers detailed advice on such issues as complying with environmental legislation, writing an environmental policy, setting up management systems, producing environmental reports and using resources more efficiently. The link is below.
http://tinyurl.com/green-i-up
RECYCLE WEEK...
Next week is national Recycle Week, during which we are asked to pledge to start recycling things we normally chuck in the bin. To raise awareness of just how much can be recycled, the Council is asking us pledge at www.recyclenow.com to recycle more electrical stuff. Kettles, toasters, hairdryers, irons, cameras and phones are currently B&NES’s least recycled electrical items. During the week, Recycle Now will send information to people who sign-up about the impact pledges have had across the country.
http://tinyurl.com/recycle-your-electrics
SOLAR EUROPE A STEP CLOSER
News from Further afield. A consortium of German companies is planning an astonishing £338bn project that would see could see Europe powered by North African solar energy within a decade.
http://tinyurl.com/sun-wower
LITTLE PROGRESS AT CLIMATE TALKS
The latest round of emissions negotiations have broken up in something like abject failure. "The only thing that they have agreed on in Bonn is that they fundamentally disagree on all issues," concluded an exasperated Regine Guenther, head of WWF Germany.
http://tinyurl.com/talk-zzzz
When we talk of new emissions cuts, from what baseline year do we measure them? That, unfortunately, has been the subject of much argument.
http://tinyurl.com/for-goodness-sake
GLACIERS WILL MELT INTO LAKES WHICH WILL DRY UP
Underlining what is at stake at the talks, following studies in China, scientists are predicting that glacial regions around the world will suffer severe flooding – and then drought, once the ice has melted completely away...
http://tinyurl.com/future-on-ice
CLIMATE RADIO
Climate Outreach Information Network and journalist Phil England have teamed up to produce an interesting website called Climate Radio, where you can download a growing series of informed 30-minute programmes on climate change. Climate Radio has so far covered issue ranging from biofuels to the ongoing post-Kyoto negotiations, and talked to many interesting experts.
http://tinyurl.com/climate-radio
SPIRALLING COSTS HIT FUSION REACTOR
It will be the size of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and weighs the same as a battleship - 36,000 tonnes of metal and instrumentation – but Iter, the experimental nuclear fusion reactor funded by China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US, is being hit by rising costs and delays. Report and film from the BBC...
http://tinyurl.com/fusion-tower
WIND OPPONENTS JOIN FORCES
Planning permission for new wind farms could prove even trickier to secure in future, following the launch of an alliance of more than 30 anti-wind farm groups promising a "grass-roots revolt" against "ruthless" wind farm developers.
http://tinyurl.com/wind-stink
GREENWASH OF THE WEEK
The Chevron advert below talks of using resources “respectfully”. Meanwhile, the oil giant is currently facing the most expensive environmental lawsuit in history after dumping more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, leaving local people suffering a wave of cancers, miscarriages and birth defects.
http://tinyurl.com/chevron-advert
Campaign for Justice in Ecuador:
http://chevrontoxico.com
GREEN INVENTION OF THE WEEK
The race to get the first mass-produced hydrogen car on the roads is underway in earnest. Honda says its FCX Clarity will enter mass production in 2018, but thanks to its basic design, former racing driver Hugo Speers hopes to get his Riversimple Urban Car into mass production by 2013.
http://tinyurl.com/h2-race
ALLOTMENTS THE NEW ROCK AND ROLL
Well almost. There are now 30 applicants for every money saving plot – and there’s a 40-year waiting list in one London borough. More allotments for the people!
http://tinyurl.com/growing-pain
This week's Green Digest was compiled by Gideon Kibblewhite. Let Gideon know if you've seen a story you think he should cover. This digest appears every Tuesday, except when it's a bit late. To subscribe visit greenbath.org/og, create a user id if you don't already have one and subscribe to Bath Green News.
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